Live Talk Wednesday, 4/9 Guest: Professor Guy McPherson

Joe Garcia The Arizona Republic Apr. 9, 2008 10:46 AM

LIVE TALK WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2008

LIVE TALK GUEST: Guy R. McPherson, professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona.

Dr. McPherson has a bachelor's degree in forest resources from the University of Idaho, a master's degree in range science from Texas Tech University and a doctorate in range science from Texas Tech. He is the author or co-author of such books as "Living with Fire: Fire Ecology and Policy for the Twenty-first Century," "Letters to a Young Academic: Seeking Teachable Moments," "Killing the Natives: Has the American Dream Become a Nightmare" and "Ecology and Management of North American Savannas." He also serves on a number of scientific and environmental advisory boards.

In your April 6 Sunday Viewpoints essay (www.viewpoints.com), you say some pretty frightening things: $400 for a barrel of oil soon, our oil supply running out altogether in 30 years, the modern world coming to a screeching halt because of lack of energy. How much of this do you actually believe, and how much is a scare tactic to get our attention?

I believe everything I wrote. I am trying to inform people, not scare them. I do not benefit from peak oil or spreading the word about it. Indeed, it will cost me my 401k, my 403b, and the job I love, and writing about it has been costly to my so-called career. And then there's the consequent hate mail ...

However, one minor correction: I indicated the current supply of oil would be exhasted in about 30 years at current levels of demand, but demand destruction will certainly result from high prices (this is already occurring in "third world" countries and for many people in the U.S.). As a result, I suspect we'll be pulling oil out of the ground as long as people occupy the planet.

My estimate for $400 oil within a decade comes from these sources: Hubbert's model predicts we'll be producing about 60 million barrels per day in 2018, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts global demand at about 110 million barrels per day by then. The French investment bank Ixis-CIB forecasts $380 oil in 2015, so my estimate is relatively conservative.

All three presidential candidates -- Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain -- are in favor of energy diversification and committed to battling global warming. So aren't we, as a nation, finally getting on the right track?

First and foremost, all three viable candidates support economic growth,which strongly depends on the use of oil. They all support increasing efficiency, but not conservation. Conservation is political suicide, as Jimmy Carter discovered. The track we're on is a monorail with a cliff at the end.

What needs to happen to avoid a complete meltdown of the "American Empire," as you call it? And do you believe there is still time to avoid what you refer to as "the post-industrial Stone Age"?

First, let me explain Empire: We exploit humans and resources, often with extreme violence, to provide Americans with indulgences beyond belief to most people.

Had we started the project of powering down at least 30 years ago, there might still be time. At this point, I cannot imagine any steps that could allow us to avoid a meltdown of the economy or a relatively rapid transition into the post-industrial Stone Age. We depend on abundant, inexpensive oil for delivery of food, water, shelter, and health care. The days of abundant, inexpensive oil are behind us. American Empire will soon run its course.

I am hopeful we can save a few tens of millions of Americans. But we will need to make massive changes in our entire way of life, starting immediately. We must abandon the project of globalization and its attendant indulgences, for example, and focus on saving lives. The difficulties inherent in delivering our food, water, shelter, and health
care in the absence of fossil fuels create a daunting set of challenges, to say the least. Roscoe Bartlett, who co-chairs the Peak Oil Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, says the task is analogous to putting a man on the moon. A more appropriate analogy is a large human colony on Jupiter. In any event, this will not be easy.

What personal measures do you take for conservation? And what personal measures do you recommend others take as a way to individually contribute to a sustainable energy future? And does it really matter or must everything be done on a grander, global scale?

I drive a compact, hybrid-electric car. I live in a small, old rental house less than two blocks from the University of Arizona, where I work. I buy only what I need, and I check labels with care. I avoid eating meat because vegetarianism saves water and energy. I use compact-fluourscent bulbs in my house. And so on, totaling dozens or perhaps hundreds of daily decisions.

Ultimately, none of these actions matter at all. My lifestyle has virtually no impact on the global system. I'd be willing to bet the U.S. military uses more oil in a weekend than I will use in my entire life, and corporate CEOs and politicians who control this country are firmly committed to maintaining the status quo, regardless of the costs to us, other cultures and species, or future generations.

Are you a firm believer in solar energy? They say the technology isn't quite there yet, but perhaps if the investment happens the technology will follow? Arizona seems to be missing out on a possible bright future here, if you pardon the pun.

I was a firm believer in solar, wind, and geothermal energy until a few years ago, and I still believe they will help individuals. But no combination of these "renewable" technologies will make a notable difference at the level of 300 million Americans, much less the 6.5 people in the world. Consider the vaunted Canadian tar sands, for example: They currently use abundant energy and clean water to produce less than 2 million barrels of oil each day, and the goal is to reach nearly 5 million barrels per day by 2020. We currently produce more than 70 million barrels per day at the global level, and demand is outstripping supply. By 2020, demand is projected at more than 110 million barrels per day. The wished-for 5 million barrels per day from the tar sands is a drop in the ocean, too little and too late to prevent our descent into the Stone Age.

Will we ever get away from oil? It's still a relatively cheap way to produce and use such energy -- and a lot of folks are getting rich. Oil companies made record profits last year, and I don't see any movement to remove oil companies from federal tax breaks and subsidies. Plus, almost everything we own and use needs oil to run it ...

I think humans will be using oil as long as we occupy the planet. Had we leveled the playing field between heavily subsidized fossil fuels and renewables several decades ago, we could have used oil for important tasks, such as manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, and railroad tracks with electric rails. Instead, we built suburbia, subsidized consumption of fossil fuels, and ripped the solar panels off the White House. In short, we doggedly pursued economic growth as our only god.

What about drilling in Alaska wilderness refuge and more off-shore drilling? Would this help America's supply of oil? Or would this just delay the inevitable?

These sources comprise part of the roughly 1 trillion barrels of oil remaining on Earth, but they are relatively small amounts. They would delay the inevitable by a few months, at most.

One option, surprisingly, you don't mention is war over oil. There is the belief out there that if worse comes to worst, America will secure its oil supply through military means with "national security" being the justification. Your thoughts, or are we talking about World War III?

Actually, I hinted about war with my statement about acquiring oil at the point of a gun. We've been using our military to secure fossil fuels, including oil, at least as far back as World War II. The well-respected historian Howard Zinn connects the dots very well with respect to World War II. More recently, Alan Greenspan noted in his recent book that the occupation of Iraq is about oil. I have no doubt we will continue to use our military might to secure oil, and we will be joined by other nations. Currently, we spend more money on our military than all other nations combined, so we will continue to be "best" at using our military muscle to acquire vital resources.

Not a word in your essay about Iraq either. Does that mean you don't subscribe to the theory that the war was about oil to begin with? Or perhaps just the beginning of military options?

Iraq was not the first war we fought to secure oil. It will not be the last. Most Americans do not want to know where the oil comes from: Ignorance is bliss, after all.

So, at the end of the day, are your optimistic or pessimistic about the energy prospects for America? Will the cavalry swoop in and save us at the last minute, and who exactly is that cavalry?

There is no cavalry. No alternatives scale, and we're out of time. We made the important decision about energy policy at two critical junctures in American history: (1) shortly after WWII, when we created the interstate highway system and the suburbs to build a way of life that had no future because it relied completely on ready supplies of a finite resource, and (2) in 1980, when we dismissed conservation at irrelevant -- I guess we didn't think we needed lights any more, because it was "morning in America."

Any message to America as we approach Earth Day, which is coming up April 22? Anything other than gloom and doom, I mean? Is "bloom" anywhere in that equation?

Absolutely. This is wonderful news on many levels. Passing the world oil peak means the world economy will collapse, thereby giving other cultures and species an opportunity to persist a few more years. Economic growth is tightly linked to extinction rates, so the forthcoming Greatest Depression is great news from the other occupants of planet Earth.

In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that we will fail to voluntarily prevent frying the planet beyond the point of habitability. But peak oil forces us to stop burning fossil fuels, which might give us a chance, as a species, to squeeze through the global-change bottleneck. Peak oil is the last chance for our species, and many, many others with which we share the planet.

Thus, if you care about other species, or even about our species,
peak oil is good news. However, if you're like most humans, you care a lot more about yourself and your loved ones than about people you don't know and especially future generations. And that's how we got into this mess.

Thank you for participating in aztalk Live Talk Wednesday.

The pleaure is all mine. Thank you for facilitating discussion of this critical issue. Readers who would like to continue the conversation are welcome to comment on my blog, Nature Bats Last: http://blog.ltc.arizona.edu/naturebatslast/